Early in Thoreau's career, he became obsessed with the problem of getting to be at home in the world. This ambitious book relates that obsession to his way of fostering at-homeness: "inscribing" himself not only through words but through such occupations as the making of books, houses, and tracks in the woods. Frederick Garber reveals that a complex fable endemic in Thoreau and perceptible from his earliest major writings puts inscribing and the quest for at-homeness in terms of a search for a home of homes, a quest that Thoreau realized must be ultimately unsuccessful. Focusing on...